Let’s talk about grit. Grit is what separates the winners from the quitters. Grit gets you through the tough times – the struggles. But grit isn’t just about buckling down and doing what is tough for the sake of getting it done. In order for someone to truly possess and exhibit grit, there are three essential things that have to be present:

1)   Passion

2)   Persistence

3)   Appreciation

I was recently spending some time with a friend of mine from college. Since our time as freshman roommates, I have made a life for myself in business, and he has become a medical doctor.  Even though we have had wildly different experiences since the time we split a dorm room, I realized that he is one of the few people in this world that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I can trust.

Every single person on this planet is unique. Everyone develops their own skill sets, takes different things from their educations, experiences childhood differently, and values things their own way. It is true that if you are smart and dedicated, you can turn your uniqueness into a super power, but the sad reality is that your individuality can just as easily lead to your demise.  

I am often asked what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur. What skills or qualities are prerequisites for successfully launching a business? In my opinion, the most important ability in any successful businessperson is the ability to prioritize. 

Let’s look at a hypothetical example. Let’s say there are four wildfires raging at one time. Three are relatively minor, but one is large, and is getting closer to civilization. What should the firefighters do? Should they attack the smaller ones first and claim easy victories? Or should they go after the largest, most life threatening blaze first? The answer here should be obvious.

Murphy’s Law states that if something can go wrong, it will go wrong. This may strike you as pessimistic, but when it comes to launching a business, it is incredibly pragmatic. Throughout my career I have started a half a dozen businesses, and I noticed the same phenomenon with every single one of them. Everything I did took twice as long as I thought it would, cost twice as much, and was twice as hard to accomplish. That lesson was hard learned the first time around. It lead to a lot of frustration and sleepless nights, but ever since then the journey has become incrementally easier.  

When does a company cease to be an idea and instead becomes a real business? Is it when you get your tax ID? When you hire employees? When you accept investment? To me, the ultimate measure of a business is whether or not it can provide a product that people will buy.  

Years ago, in the midst of a heated argument, I heard someone stop the discussion and say of their opponent, “I want to hear their side of the story before I respond.” Now, I mentioned this little piece of wisdom in my previous post, “Moderation is Key,” but it bears repeating here. Instead of immediately launching into his take of the events at the crux of the disagreement, this man stopped in order to entertain the opportunity of discovering more information. He wanted to make sure he had a solid understanding of his opponent’s position before he responded with is own thoughts and feelings on the matter. This may seem like a simple thing, but for something as simple and fundamental as having all of the information before choosing a side, it is incredibly difficult, and incredibly rare.

We live in an age of automation. Jobs are being taken over by machines. I have discussed this before in my blogs, The American Dream is Quickly Dying, and The Problem with Automation, but it bears addressing again. It is shocking to me to see how drastically certain industries have changed. When I was growing up, reporters controlled the flow of news. Today, the only space left for them seems to be in deep investigative journalism, since anyone and everyone with a twitter account now covers breaking news. I used to have to book family vacations through travel agents. Now, sophisticated searching databases like Kayak and Google Flights have all but eliminated the need for one. I am sure that reporters in the 80s and travel agents in the 90s thought that they had job security, and yet where are they today? 

Today is Theodore Roosevelt’s 160th birthday. Here is my favorite thing that he ever said.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out where the strong man stumbled, nor where the doer of good deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who knows the great devotions, the great enthusiasms and who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best wins, knowing the thrills of high achievement but who if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."